Welsh Liberal Democrats

Assembly Member criticises another fall in Ambulance response times

September 2, 2009 10:20 AM

Commenting on the release of new statistics that show that the Welsh Ambulance Service failed to meet the target of responding to 65% of ' category A 'emergency calls within eight minutes during the month of July, the Welsh Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Minister, Peter Black said:"While I appreciate that this is a tough target to meet during the winter months when there is increased pressure on the NHS that is no excuse for missing it in July." Yet again there has been no improvement in the South East of Wales where response times remain dangerously low. We have brought this to the Ministers attention time and time again, but no progress is being made. " The Minister ' s decision to impose £40m of savings onto the Welsh Ambulance Service over two years has left them facing a significant problem and made recovery almost impossible. There also appears to be little movement in tackling bottlenecks at Accident and Emergency units. If performance is struggling in July, it does not bode well for the forthcoming Winter. " More details on the response times can be found here.